Response to Kids’ Misbehavior: “Good Old Days” vs. Now

Unable to find a job in my field after college, I ended up working as a nursing home activity director. It was the best job in the place. Unlike overworked staff in other departments, I had time to form real relationships with the residents. This was 25-some years ago (yes, I’m that old). Our 100 bed unit was brimming with people too frail to care for themselves but most were otherwise mentally acute. (Not one patient with today’s unnecessary plague, Alzheimer’s disease.)

These elders were in their 80’s and 90’s, born around the 1900’s or slightly before, and always happily reminisced with someone willing to listen. They were extraordinary teachers and gave me perspectives I could have encountered nowhere else. One angle new to me was how differently childhood was viewed by adults back when they were growing up.

Kids worked hard then. They were expected to do heavy chores at home as well as work on the family farm or family business. Some even held jobs in factories. But when their obligations were over they were entirely free. They roamed the streets or woods with their peers, improvised games, put on their own skits and plays, made playthings like twig whistles and soapbox cars, built forts, swung from vines into swimming holes, and indulged in make-believe well into their early teens. They skirted around the adult world in a realm of their own, as children have done throughout human history.

I’m not implying that childhood was remotely easy back then. Aside from hard work there seemed to be very little recognition of a child’s emotional needs. Worse, it was a time of blatant racial, gender, ethnic, and class discrimination. But I’d like to point out that when these elders were kids back in 1910’s and 1920’s many of them caused real trouble. Here are a few of the more extreme stories they told me.

Halloween was a holiday with no real adult involvement or interest. That night kids of all ages went out trick-or-treating, knowing they weren’t likely to get a treat (cookie or apple) from most neighbors. Preteens or teens often played tricks to retaliate. Soaping windows was the mildest trick they described. Most were much worse. Wooden steps were pulled away from doors, gravestones left in yards, pigs let out of pens, fires set in dry cornfields ready for harvest, water pumped into basements. One man told me he and his friends put an elderly widow’s buggy on top of her back porch roof. It wasn’t till a few days later that her plight was noticed and someone strong enough to help could get it down. A common Halloween prank was lifting an outhouse a foot or so to the side. In the dark, an unsuspecting person heading out to use it was likely to fall into the hole.

A 14-year-old stole whiskey from a bootlegger and got shot at as he ran off. Another bootlegger was blamed and never seen again.

A 15-year-old took her older sister’s papers booking passage on a ship to the U.S., saying her sister could better look after their family back home. Once she arrived, she worked as a cook for a family that paid for the ticket, answered to her sisters name, married under that name, and gained citizenship under that name. Her sister used the same name back in Ireland all that time.

There were plenty of other stories. Public drunkenness, fist fights that turned into brawls, runaways who rode the rails and runaways who got married against their parents’ wishes, shoplifting, breaking into school offices to change grades and steal tests, and one story of a school riot over a change in dismissal time.

These people suffered no appreciable consequences from authorities.

Not. One. Of. Them.

Their parents were certainly angry if they found out. The usual punishment? More chores. If police were informed they gave the kids a talking to, in the most extreme cases put them in the back of a squad car for a more serious talking to at the police station. No charges. No jail time. No record of their misdeeds beyond a local cop’s memory. Back then, it was assumed that kids would grow out of it.

All of these people grew up to work stable jobs and own homes. Most were married until death parted them from their spouses. One was a judge, one a career military officer, several were in the skilled trades, several others were business owners, many were homemakers and tireless volunteers, nearly all were proud parents of highly accomplished children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Yet today’s kids are being criminalized.

I’m not for a moment defending any young person’s impulse to wreak mayhem at home or in the community. I am saying that today’s response to (far less drastic) behaviors common during any child’s growing up years is appalling.

These days armed officers roam schools in thousands of districts. Studies show their presence doesn’t actually improve safety. Instead, children are often treated like criminals for common disciplinary issues such as yelling, swearing, or pushing. Here are a few of the more extreme examples.

A seventeen-year-old girl spent 24 hours in jail for truancy. This honors student works two jobs to help support her family and can’t always get to school.

A six-year old boy and avid Cub Scout was suspended for five days after bringing to school his Cub Scout eating utensil containing a fork, spoon, and knife. Due to public pressure, the school board voted to spare him the other punishment he’d received: 45 days in reform school.

A thirteen-year-old boy was handcuffed, arrested, and transported from school to a Juvenile Detention Center although his parents weren’t notified. His crime? He “burped audibly” in gym class.

A seventeen-year-old boy who broke up a fight between two girls was shot with a taser by a deputy on duty at the school. The young man suffered a brain hemorrhage, spent 67 days in intensive care, and remains brain injured. The officer wasn’t charged due to lack of evidence.

…most schools do not face any serious threat of violence and police officers patrolling the corridors and canteens are largely confronted with little more than boisterous or disrespectful childhood behavior.

What we see often is a real overreaction to behavior that others would generally think of as just childish misbehavior rather than law breaking,” said Fowler. Tickets are most frequently issued by school police for “disruption of class,” which can mean causing problems during lessons but is also defined as disruptive behavior within 500 ft of school property such as shouting, which is classified as “making an unreasonable noise.”

In some states tickets are issued, even in primary grades. These citations may compel the student to appear in court to face sentences including fines, court costs, and mandatory participation in remedial programs. This means the child is now entered into the judicial system, with police or court records that may or may not be sealed. If students don’t appear or their families can’t afford the fines, an arrest warrant may automatically be issued when they turn 17. This means childish misbehavior can follow young people into their adult lives. There’s a common question on applications for college, the military, and employment “Have you ever been charged with a crime?” The answer, for these kids, is “yes.”

Heavy-handed tactics used against children may get worse very soon. School districts in 22 states including Texas, California, Florida, Kansas, and Utah are participating in a federal program which provides military surplus to local law enforcement organizations. We’re talking gear like assault rifles, extended magazines, military vehicles, and other weapons intended for combat.

What happened to free range childhood? Why do we act as if every choice a child makes must be the correct one? That risks are always too risky? That freedom of any kind equals danger?

The goal of creating high-achieving young people through unremitting scrutiny, at times backed up by force, is wrong. But today’s treatment of young people isn’t even based on evidence. Ask any high-achieving adult about their youthful high jinks. Better yet, ask the oldest people still left to us. A long look back may be the cure we need.

“We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self-control.” inscription in an Ancient Egyptian tomb

“I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless… When I was young we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly unwise and impatient.” -Hesiod, 8th century BC

“The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest, and unladylike in speech, behavior, and dress.” -Peter the Hermit, sermon preached 1274 AD

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You are such an artist! Filling me with righteous indignation and despair over the state of our collective stupidity, and then giving me perspective enough to make me laugh! Brilliant post, my admirable friend.

Now, to wait till we’re old enough to tell stories of what we REALLY did as kids!

All I’m fessing up to now is jumping off Stephanie Reasor’s garage roof. We thought the leaves we raked into a pile below would be soft. We also didn’t remember to move the rake. That’s one way to chip a front tooth….

I’m often shocked by the way in which children are frequently dealt with in America. It’s mind-boggling. At the same time though, I must say that some of those behaviours by long-ago youth which you mentioned were really dreadful and caused severe suffering to other people. I hope that one day a reasonable balance is struck. (Things are different where I live, and from the stories I’ve heard they were different in “the old days” too. Not saying that we have balance either. Far from it! As your final quotes show, that may be impossible to attain, lol.)

I read about the ‘policing’ of your schools with my mouth open in shock. It doesn’t happen here in Australia, nor back in the UK where I was brought up… No armed presence in our schoolyards. Are your children worse than ours? I don’t think so. I don’t think children are naughtier than they used to be, but I do think that parental discipline is less effective than it used to be, since many parents now think it is the province of teachers. I also think that children are more spoiled and indulged than they used to be. Political correctness and the criminalisation of physical punishment are all very well in their own way, but they have created a gap in the effectiveness of discipline, and parents who are unable to say no to their children are creating generations of wilful children with an unjustified sense of entitlement. Sorry. Rant over…

I don’t know Laura….I see a lot of problems today related to parents letting their kids run roughshod over them. I have no comment on how “schools” discipline kids because I don’t think schools should exist in the first place – at least not government schools. At least back in the old days they would send the brats to bed “without dinner”. I have asked many parents (mostly moms) if they could or would consider inflicting the pangs of hunger on their child….and not one yet has answered affirmatively. I received a lot of , “God NO! I would never…”

Kids riding roughshod over parents isn’t the same thing at all. Adults have made kids the focus of their ambition, weirdly over-empowering children while at the same time depriving them of a childhood. So many kids today have very little time for imaginative and active play of their own devising. They have minimal freedom to form multi-age friendships and to exist in a realm apart from adults. They rarely contribute in a purposeful way to the running of the household or family business, let alone other responsibilities meaningful to them. Their lives are over-structured by adults and yet at the same time there are too few firm rules. This is a very uncomfortable time to be a child, as I see it.

Thank you! We live in a community with lots of children. I allow my son mostly free reign within the neighborhood as long as he checks in before changing locations, and is back at pre-determined times. Some parents act as if children should only be in the back yard and not to be riding bikes, playing on our neighborhood parks, or investigating the small wooded areas within the community without constant adult supervision. My son has become so self assured and confident because of this. The kids learn to solve conflict amongst themselves, they come up with complex games and spend hours a day without a TV or device in sight. Long live childhood!

Love love love your blog and I feel inspired. So excited to have found you! ! A college professor, not a real one, he was really a graduate student that they let teach, insulted my writing too. I let it slow me down because I was young and such, but now I’m like you. I can’t believe I ever let that bother me. I can’t wait to read more of your work!

This is an excellent and incisive post. Part of the problem, it seems to me, is that the mass media sensationalizes the rare acts of violence in schools leaving the public with the impression that they are common. Even here in our rural Virginia county there is deep public support for having armed guards patrolling at schools. It seems, sometimes, that we are losing our collective minds.

You’re so right on how attitudes are swayed, sometimes dangerously so, by the media. I wish people would remember that hate spewed via radio and TV was in large part responsible for atrocities that happened in Rwanda and Bosnia. Us versus them denies our humanity—-making kids into “them” is terrifying.

I am just loving your work. I am the mother of a fierce Jungle Girl and was met with shocked looks that I ‘let’ her cook her breakfast in the morning…oh my lord…back in the day she’d be making breakfast for all the children while I went to work or looked after the youngest. Let’s give our kids some credit! They are clever and wise and learn through testing the boundaries. With guidance they can become so capable quickly.

Laura’s background includes teaching nonviolence, writing collaborative poetry with nursing home residents, facilitating support groups for abuse survivors, and writing sardonic greeting cards. She is currently a book editor. She also leads workshops on memoir, poetry, and creative thinking for Cuyahoga County Public Library, Literary Cleveland, and elsewhere. Her poetry appears in such places as Verse Daily, J Journal, Neurology, Literary Mama, and Penman Review. Her creative nonfiction and essays appear in such places as Wired, MOON Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Praxis, and Under the Gum Tree.

She also blogs optimistically on topics such as learning, creative living, mindfulness, and hope.

Laura lives on a small farm where she works as an editor while also slooowly writing the 17 books she alleges she’ll actually finish.

Although she has deadlines to meet she tends to wander from the computer to preach hope, snort with laughter, cook subversively, ponder life’s deeper meaning, talk to livestock, sing to bees, walk dogs, make messy art, concoct tinctures, watch foreign films, and hide in books.

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